Reference Management with Endnote

There are many reference management tools. The University of St. Gallen recommends Endnote Basic for students. It is web-based and free.

What is a reference management programme?

A reference management programme can:

manage literature references needed for scientific writing

create a bibliography in different citation styles

insert citations and a bibliography into a text processing programme

What is EndNote Basic?

Endnote Basic (sometimes also called Endnote Web or Endnote online) is a web-based reference management tool by Thomson Reuters, allowing you to store up to 50'000 references in your own library. It is easy to use and therefore well suited for beginners. You can access your sources from anywhere online.

In order to activate your EndNote Basic account you should go to the following website and register for the service:

It is easy to lose track of all your sources and citations when writing academic papers, and even more so when writing your Bachelor or Master thesis. You can save yourself a lot of time, effort and headaches by organizing all sources when you first read them. A Reference Management System allows you to sort citations and sources and to compile your own notes for your sources.

Correct citation

By directly importing Citations from databases you will make less mistakes than if you have to enter them manually into your biography. To create a bibliography and to work with Cite While You Write (see below) you have to choose a style of referencing. Go to Format » Bibliography and click on Select Favorites and add your preferred style. At the University of St.Gallen we generally use APA style. Entries from Metasearch, Web of Science and most databases can easily be exported to EndNote. In case that this function is not available most databases allow exporting bibliographical information in RIS format. These files can easily be imported to Endnote. A Firefox toolbar to import online sources to Endnote is available (see Downloads in Endnote).

Cite while you write

Another important advantage of literature management programmes is, that they can be integrated directly into a word processor (for example Word). Thus it is possible to “cite while you write”, or cwyw for short. Endnote Basic offers a cwyw plugin for MS Word (for both Windows and Mac). This has to be downloaded. It can be found at Format » Cite while you write plugin or at Downloads.

Research directly in Endnote

Literature can also be researched directly in Endnote. Access to the university library’s ressources has already been set up, you need no further parameter data. Access is available at Collect » Online Search » Select... » U St.Gallen. However, we do recommend you search for literature in MetaSearch and our databases where you have multiple search and filter options.